For example, in a manufacturing process for a liquid crystal display apparatus (LCD), a predetermined circuit pattern is formed on a glass substrate by using photolithography. More specifically, a resist liquid is supplied to the glass substrate to form a coating film. After drying and heat treating the coating film, a light exposure process and a developing process are successively performed.
As an apparatus that supplies a resist liquid to a glass substrate to form a coating film, there is known a coating film forming system (for example, see Patent Document 1) including a stage which vacuum chucks a glass substrate horizontally, a resist supply nozzle which supplies the resist liquid to the substrate held on the stage, and a moving mechanism which moves the stage and resist supply nozzle relative to each other in the horizontal direction.
When holding the glass substrate by vacuum chucking, however, suction holes formed on the stage tend to be printed onto the surface of the glass substrate, and many particles attach to the lower surface of the substrate. Since either the resist supply nozzle or the stage must be moved, the apparatus becomes bulky with a complicated structure and requires a high power cost.
Patent Document 1: Jpn. Pat. Appl. KOKAI Publication No 10-156255